


baby i'm a revolutionary (and i'm here to liberate your heart)

by oncewewerezombies



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, Crossdressing, Dave's mouth can't stop (won't stop), F/M, Friendly Sex, Gentle femdom, Hollywood, One Night Stands, Penis In Vagina Sex, Praise Kink, Pre-Canon, References to Canon, inner sociopolitical discussion, inscrutable metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:26:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29332287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oncewewerezombies/pseuds/oncewewerezombies
Summary: Et je fus plein alors de cette Vérité:Que le meilleur trésor que Dieu garde au GénieEst de connaître à fond la terrestre BeautéPour en faire jaillir le Rythme et l’harmonie- Troll Daft Punk
Relationships: Dirk's Bro | Alpha Dave Strider/Grandma English | Alpha Jade Harley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	baby i'm a revolutionary (and i'm here to liberate your heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Troll Western Primary Romantic language translation:
> 
> And I was full then of this Truth:  
> That the greatest treasure reserved by God for the Genius  
> Is to know profoundly earthly Beauty  
> So that from there can spring forth Rhythm and harmony
> 
> _Troll Western Primary Romantic was declared heretical in the beginning sweeps of Her Imperious Condescension's rule. Some fragments of Daft Punk poetry have survived in the original prose, thanks to the efforts of subversive Alternian lingual preservationists. Readers should be advised that quoting or preserving Troll Western Romantic language in any form carries an automatic culling sentence._

In some ways, maybe you should feel some kinda fucking dumb.

A lot of men your age would feel some kind of humiliated. Dressed the way you are. The thing is, you are absolutely _rocking_ this brilliantly scarlet, hideously expensive designer, halterneck ballgown and there's nothing else you'd rather be wearing right now. You look _good_ , and you fucking know it. There's something about the particular shade of red that this is that makes your shades pop, and your alabaster fucking skin look even paler and more immaculate than usual. You'd worn just a trace of make-up; you know, just enough so you didn't look fucking washed up in the pap photos. Those assholes make your life a misery, and you're addicted to the attention at the same time.

If you had titanium balls as big as the legendary Ekberg, you'd shoot them down with something more physical than your famously barbed wit. Just enough to remind them that those are people on the other end of those cameras, and that sometimes those people get _pissed off_. But it's part of the price of fame you guess, and you do so fucking love being famous. How the fuck else could you live the way you do, and do the shit you wanna do, however you want to do it?

Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff were always meant to tap the cultural zeitgeist and make you what you are in terms of globalised culture, if Rose is to be believed. Considering all the shit she's been right on, you're willing to let her have this one too. Her own creative offerings are a little more fucking...obscure. Everyone reads her books looking for secret meanings and looks straight past what's there visible on the surface, and with your movies and shit they just look at the top of the banana peel comedy and think that's all there is to it. You're _deep_ , you have _emotions_. Besides, it takes someone pretty fucking smart to make something so fucking balls to the wall stupid.

This is your latest premiere afterparty, and Rose has organised most of the guest list in unison with your beleaguered personal assistant. You probably should pay that poor motherfucker more, when you take into consideration some of the more disgustingly particular things you demand of the man. You're not sure if you're worse or better than Miranda Priestly, but you know you're up there and he always finds a way to deliver. Not everyone can find a way to ensure that you have camera privileges in the White House on a motherfucking whim the day after you asked for them, after all. You don't know what it cost you, and you don't care - you'd gotten the shots you'd needed, the ones you _knew_ you were going to need. Eventually. For something important. This 'rebellion' Rose has pulled you into despite your kicking and screaming about artistic integrity, you take it as seriously as you can take anything - so at _least_ as seriously as you take your chic as fuck wardrobe - but you have to admit, you usually go with your gut as to what you need to do. Usually it's just about what you need to say through your movies.

Who the fuck was going to believe you that the corporate sweetheart figurehead Betty Crocker was a motherfucking fish alien, here to remove humans from the face of the earth? Working to control every government in the fucking world and _succeeding_ at it? Nobody with half a fucking brain cell rattling around their skull. Hell, sometimes you wake up at night and don't believe it yourself, and you've seen _her_ in her real skin. It sure is fucking something, you have to give the fish bitch that. 

Right now though, the fate of humanity is one of the furtherest things from your head. It's in outer fucking space, even beyond Alpha Centauri. You are leaning on the bar and trying to find out what pick-up line is going to work on this _babe_ dressed in a subtly gorgeous, ebony shalwar kameez with swirled silvery designs that remind you of stars and constellations. You know who she is, of course. You'd looked the guest list over, but the good Dr Jade English with her very, _very_ long string of alphabet after her name hadn't looked quite this tasty in her mugshot. You should get the guy who got you the mugshots fired, because holy shit, you would have been all over her like white on rice a _lot_ fucking sooner if you'd known she'd be this hot in person. Maybe it's not just how she looks though; maybe it's just sheer force of character. Something that layers itself on a person over the years (if they're the right _sort_ of person) like nascent layers on a shining pearl, the oyster of circumstance struggling to soothe its irritation and coming out with something utterly priceless.

You'd always been down with older women, older than forty is your preference but you have never wagered your wiles on such a fine specimen of vintage femininity before. One of your hands has a drink in it, and the other is gesturing animatedly as you try to convince this steely-eyed and haired leviathan that you are a) cool and b) someone she wants to go to bed with. What can you say? Competence is sexy, and this lady, this _Jade English_ oozes it in spades. It's like a coating of gilded edible chocolate over the whole of her entire body and you want to lick it the fuck off. You are _so_ right there. She's kind of smiling at you and hasn't backed the fuck away in the light of your rambling convoluted metaphors and vaguely literary bullshit, the light gleaming off the lenses of her widely circular glasses sitting across the bridge of her cute as fuck nose, and you press your romantic suit animatedly in the face of that mild encouragement. 

Look, she has to be at least a little interested in you, or why would she be here at this particular party in fucking point? Right? Right. No one just _turns up_ at a Dave fucking Strider party. People are inhaled by the chaos by invitation, rolled around the maw of the perennial party machine that is your fucking stake on Hollywood legend and spat out again into the dim light of morning. Dishevelled, bedraggled and otherwise the worse for fucking wear but with _stories_ that live on into glorious socialite mythos. Were you there at the party with the gorilla? Were you there? Did you go? Did you see the real life version of Optimus Prime? Did you _see?_ Were you _there?_ Most of them are asshole flavoured bastards with a bastard filling but you know how this town works and there's something illicitly pleasurable in making even these jaded fucks feel something like childish wonder.

You're a legend in your own fucking time and your time's not over yet.

For once though, it isn't helping you score. _Huh_. You're honestly not that used to that. Not that you always get the itch, but there's never really been anyone you've turned your eye to that you haven't been able to convince. But the look this lady is giving you through her wide, round glasses says she's seen all your shit before, and that other people did it better and she's really not that impressed. You snap your fingers and order her and you both another drink, tucking a benjamin through sleight of hand into the bartender's fingers. Hey. You've been there. And this kid is probably gonna make much better use of that hundy than you will. What are you gonna do, buy more bullshit with it? Hustlers gotta pay their fucking rent.

That, she seems to notice. And in a good way.

"Chukkas then, boyo. You're being kind to the little people, huh? Big spender?" she says, with a little wry twist to her mouth as she lifts her own drink up from the smooth wood surface of the counter. Hey, she sounds like she's doubting you somehow. You can feel your own lips twist to match hers, and you shrug. If you'd been a possessor of the tits that usually filled out a ballgown like this, you're sure they would have fucking shimmy shimmy shaked. As it is, you hope the muscles and tendons in your shoulders and across your pectorals are doing their own kind of magic. 

"You know, I used to _be_ one of the little people," you say, because it's true. You'd gone hungry and dirty and god, gotten so fucking tired. You'd hit the road at three in the morning, and pulled over to sleep in some byway outside LA so you could fucking just. Rest. Because you'd been working on some fucktard's music video for nothing more than clicks, just working your guts out until you could get your name to the point where you could get money. Eating money. Rent money. And once you'd hooked up with Rose, and you'd had a helpful voice in your ear telling you which projects to take, which actors to use, who to talk to - oh, you'd done so much fucking better. But you know what it's like to be used up, and spat the fuck out in a wad of chewed up gum that used to be a human being. "Better they have the money than me." 

You take a sip of your appletini, tasting sweet apple and strong booze on your tongue and quirk a sculpted eyebrow at her. She'd ordered something much more straightforward - a random selection of vowels in a Scottish accent served over ice. And because this is your party and your fucking bar, you assume it's a decent amount of years old and something pretty fucking expensive. She seems happy enough with it, anyway. You watch her lips meet the rim of the glass, the way her strong hand with its calloused fingers wraps around the tumbler and god. You want those hands, that mouth on you. Or your mouth on her, you're not exactly fucking picky that way. You're a giving sort of guy, and fuck you sideways, but boy how you'd like to _give_ her something right now.

"Is that why you're so magnanimous now, director?"

"Nah. Well, maybe just a little." You take another sip, leaning your head back for a moment to expose the length of your throat and looking up into the gleam of the overhead lights. This really is a nice venue. You're sure that people are trashing it already, but you're not worried about that right now. That's another thing all your fucking money is good for; paying for the consequences of you having a good time. Just like a speeding fine. "They deserve it for putting up with us rich assholes. I think of it as hazard pay, something they very fucking richly deserve for being exposed to the one per cent, the asshole movers and shakers of the entertainment world."

"It's not quite what I thought the event would be, when I was pitched the possibility of attending," she observes and you watch as she holds her tumbler in her hand like she can use it to lead the whole party into chaos. You know when a woman is gearing for rebellion, and this Jade English has it in fucking spades. Since you're pretty sure you didn't invite her, you think Rose must have. Which makes you wonder - what is meant to come out of this? What's the play here? With Rose, there's a tesseract of meanings to every flick of her slender little fucking fingers, and that's just the facts, Jack. "But I'll admit, I'm finding it more sociable now."

"Oh yeah?" you say, leaping on that baited hook like a salmon in spawning season jumping for the open pool you know is there beyond the rock ledges in your way. Hey. You know a prompt when you fucking see one. You've been in the business too long not to. "I'd like to hope that getting attention from _the_ star of the party would make it more enjoyable. You know how many people are wanting to murder you right now? I'd say at least ten, and I bet I could identify them for you, just in case you want to know who to look out for if you need to take a brief outre to the ladies room."

She snorts through the length of her cute as fuck little nose with its slight upturn at the end, and lets her green- _green_ eyes wander the room for a moment. You weren't lying, to be honest. There's quite a few people here probably imagining her imminent painful death, or at least her eternal and ongoing embarrassment through the tabloids. Whether they'd do something about it is a matter for hypothesis, but this is Hollywood and they are some desperate and hungry people. You've seen people destroyed for less.

"No one here I couldn't handle in a good knock down fight," she says casually, and you lean on the bar and towards her. If you'd been the possessor of tits, you would have been propping them up like a god damn platter, just inviting the gaze to dwell on those saucy melons attached to your chest and the yawning cleavage between them. You might only have a toned set of pecs, but you make a damn good try at presenting the same sort of glorious vista all the same. Since she takes a moment to look, you don't think she minds the change of usual scenery. "I'm used to defending myself."

"Alright, so that is not just something you can just say in a throw away and not _explain_ , you're killing me here," you say as cool as a cucumber and as deadpan as a corpse, because you know what a story smells like, and there smells like a fucking story is here, lurking beneath her words like a level one kobold encampment in a beginner's Dungeons and Dragon campaign. When you know there's a story, you can always feel it. Inside you. Something tingly. It's always led you the right way before. And you don't think it's leading you the wrong way now.

The corner of her lip curls, while she finishes off her drink and you snap you fingers at one of the bar staff to fill up her glass. English with her glass filled is much more to your fucking taste. She lets the barstaff take away her empty glass, and supply her with a new one of amber fluid. More Scottish syllables of indefinite and inexorable age, you assume. If it's what she likes to drink, than it's not like you're going to stop her. You'd hook her up with your fucking drug dealer, if you thought it was what she would want - it's just that you don't think it is.

"Well, you know, it comes natural," she deadpans, and takes a sip of her new drink. God, you're glad that you tip the bartenders well. You don't even have to say anything, and the new drinks just turn up. And as much as you enjoy getting drunk, you enjoy watching Jade English drink somehow more. The touch of her lip to the glass, the little dart of her tongue to the corner of her mouth as she really _enjoys_ what she's drinking. "I thought everyone knew where I lived."

"No," you say, fascinated and inch a little closer. You want to _touch_ her. You want to kiss that knowing curl at the corner of her mouth. Smooth out the crow's-feet at her eyes' corners with your thumb. You want to kiss her on the mouth, and then everywhere else. And you do mean _everywhere_ , you're not DJ Khalid. Eating carpet is a pleasure, not a chore. "Where do you live, babe? Fairyland? Heaven?"

"Fairy-" She almost explodes with a splutter as she repeats what she said, and then she laughs. A big barking belly laugh that draws everyone's attention, not that you're not sure you didn't have it already. She's with you, right? And she doesn't belong here. She doesn't belong here at all, with your crowd of fakes and pretenders and fame chasers. "Fuck, _no_ , dude, I live on fucking Murder Island!"

"What, like, seriously?" God damn, you can not look away from this chick. Holy shit, you can hear the capitals when she says where she's living, that's so chic. "So why's it called Murder Island, babe? Was it called that after something like the most fucking racially fucked up named of Agatha Christie's novels happened there and ten fuckin' people died of _murder_ , or because it drives people to murder like a horse to water or like -"

"It's full of monsters. Big ones, mostly." She takes another sip of her drink and quirks an eyebrow. And somehow, you know, you _know_ that you're in. You don't know what you said or how you said it, but she's _into_ this and you're in like Flynn. Thank god. If you hadn't managed to get lucky with English tonight, you think you seriously might have died. Or gone home, got drunk and weepy and bawled into your sleek little cellphone at Rose. Who doesn't deserve that really, so it's good for everyone that you're gonna get fucking laid by this phenomenon, this _supernova_ pretending to be human. "I should show you sometime."

"You can show me your Scylla, your Charybdis, your Swamps of Dagobah, any time you like, sweetheart, I'll look at anything monstrous and freakish you want to show me," you say, and put your hand on hers recklessly. Your hand is so pale compared to hers, her tan that you're sure she came by naturally instead of by lying in a tank or getting it sprayed on, like almost everyone else here. She gives you this little sly and knowing grin full of good humour, buckteeth showing briefly and sometime after that, the two of of you make your way out of the room. Together.

You wind up in your limo, leaving the party earlier than you thought you would but with much more interesting company than you could have hoped for. You try not to paw at her breasts like an overenthusiastic teenager, but it's hard to resist that glorious swell under her embroidered tunic. When she grabs your wrist and slams your wrist back against the door, your eyes go wide and then you go limp as her teeth nibble at your throat. You can hear her chuckling deep in her throat, almost a growl and maybe buckteeth might make people think of rabbits, of gerbils, hamsters, small inoffensive herbivorous creatures but with her mouth at your throat - you're reminded of wolves.

Leaving the limo and your chauffeur behind, the two of you stumble up into your elevator, and again she pushes you up against the mirrored wall. When you're kissing her and her hand grabs with authority onto your ass, you can see yourself reflected in the blurry walls of the elevator chamber. A man in a red dress, blonde hair swept into a tousled mess and impenetrable shades eclipsing his eyes, and a woman in black and spangled stars with dark curled hair streaked with silvery-white that goes down in a tight braid to her hips, swinging gently with every movement. You love to watch yourself come undone, and every gasp echoes in your ears in the muffled acoustics of the small space. It's quite a fucking sight, to see the two of you.

If you could love anyone (besides Rose, maybe), you think you could love Jade in this moment. Like this. The way she is.

Breathless gasping moments of lust-fuelled anticipation later, you fall into bed with her. Under her. Your stupidly expensive and useless dress rucked up around your hips and you giggle (you have to admit, it's a fucking giggle) as the two of you playfully and mutually wrestle each other out of the clothes you both have on. You'd been wearing some tight briefs to keep your bulge to a minimum, and on her, the loose pants of her outfit get discarded as quickly as your man-panties. She bites your neck hard enough to leave a bruise, and you groan deeply before pulling away to fumble for your bedside table and a condom as she slowly slides her silky looking panties down her long legs and throws them to the clothes-riddled floor.

"Good boy," she says approvingly, and a shudder races down your back at the casual way she says it. Oh, that's hot. You love fucking a woman who knows what's what, and that it takes so little to turn you into an absolute bitch in bed. Jade seems to have picked that up real quick. As you roll back with the foil packet in your fingers, she plucks it out from betwixt them and gives you that feral and wolfish smile with her rabbit teeth. Oh, damn. That should not be as attractive as it fucking is. You've both still got your glasses on, and since they haven't gotten in the way of making out, you're not minded to take them off. Guess that's the benefit of experience for you both.

With deft movements, she opens the square foil with her teeth, and then slides the lubed loveglove down your straining erection. You bite your lip and wonder how she wants you, what she's in the mood for tonight. As long as you get to _fuck_ her, you're not sure you really care. Bottom, top, doggy, missionary, some weird Karma Sutra fucking bullshit, let's see how all that yoga and pilates pays the fuck off when you're trying to emulate the Chariot pose, yeah? Make your body really fucking work for this shit, make yourself _worthy_ of her attention. Like you can win at sex somehow, like that's a normal thought to have somehow.

"Holy shit, you're so hot, I'm gonna fuckin' explode just out of pure hotness, you're like god damn Gee-MILF magma, holy fucking fuck," you blurt out and fuck, you wish sometimes you had better control over your mouth.The problem is, that in the rest of your life, you don't fucking bother to keep a track on it. Some of your best movie ideas come when you're running your motormouth and just letting all the rambling metaphors and figures of speech fall from your lips like fucking rubies and pearls and emeralds of pure chaotic thought. Destined to be mined and cut and jammed into the filigree setting of your god damn stupidass ironic as fuck movies, where no one pays attention to what you have to say. They throw money at you, but they don't really _listen_. You're pretty sure it's one of the reasons that Betty hasn't bothered to actually try hard at killing you yet. "You could murder me and I'd thank you, Jesus, just make it something slow so I can really _appreciate_ it, just I'd prefer it not happen with a spoon, ok, I have a thing about spoons -"

"You're a talker, huh," she chuckles, that low dragging rasp that makes your balls want to draw up and you lick your lips, nodding a little. God, you're _fascinated_ by her. Where did Rose find her? Why did she think that this internationally known scientist who studies some weird branch of physics and maths that you couldn't understand if you lived to be a thousand, should come to your fucking party? Dave Strider, avant garde Hollywood comedy darling. You're as much of a joke as your movies are, and you know it. It's not what you would call the intellectual event of the decade, or even the year.

"You have no idea how much, but you know, if you don't like it, I have gags," you suggest, because you love to run your fucking mouth but you also love it when someone takes control of when and how you can run your mouth. Or how you can use it. She looks thoughtful, in this way that makes your dick twitch and get harder somehow, which you would have thought was impossible; something beyond the 10 of diamond on the Mohrs scale.

"I don't mind hearing you talk, Dave," she murmurs, and slides up to press her cunt against your cock. She's as bushy as a Betamax pornstar, just with silver-grey instead of black or blonde, and you shudder all over at the slick feel of her labia sliding over your throbbing hot erection. Oh Jesus fuck, please let you not cum so soon. It just - even if you're not inside her yet, it feels so _fucking_ good. "Some good humour in a fuck never goes astray, if experience has taught me anything!"

"Oh, thank _god_ , you know when I can't talk, it's like it's backing up like rancid shit in a septic tank overflow and it's so much more fucking worse the next day, _thank you_ ," you sigh, and she laughs again. A big bark of laughter that shows all her teeth and you're reminded again of dogs and wolves and other things that go bump in the night with great big fangs and monstrous appetites. Oh, what big teeth you have, Grandmama! You almost say it, but bite it back and the next thing out of your mouth is a moan as she lifts herself up and with a look of utmost concentration and satisfaction slides herself down onto your dick.

Angels sing, heavenly choirs with golden trumpets rejoice and you moan like a common Paradise Boulevard prostitute but with so much more _feeling_. You can't help it sometimes, you're just full of emotion and good sex really brings it out of you. Jade snickers at you, and then starts to move. You are _impressed_ , you've met darling young starlets with less get and up go gumption than she has. And worse core body strength, that's for fucking sure. She has actual _abs_ , even if there's some sagging here and there. You strain to reach her, to touch her with the worship she demands without saying a word, while she rides you with ease like you're her new favourite toy.

Appreciative babble falls out of your mouth and she just laughs or sighs, sometimes moans as you run your hands up and down her thighs, feeling the softness of her skin and the way her muscles move underneath. Soft, so soft to touch despite the tanned all over look she's got going. You can imagine her standing nude in some remote jungle scene, letting the sun touch her all over, cast its gold onto her skin until she exhales it out. You think you call her something like Hathor at some point, and you're pretty sure she fucking laughs at you for it.

It seems almost right, but not _quite_ right. She's a goddess, a fearsome deity but you've called her the _wrong fucking name_. You don't even know if she knows her right name, but you know what she is. You just don't know how to let her know, and the wrongness of that throbs inside the wet spaces enclosed between your ribs. You're a wordsmith, but this time you can't find the right fucking _ones_ , and it almost destroys you in a way you can't explain.

"Jade, Jade, _Jade,_ " you keen, and your fingers finally find her clit, somehow in the dense maze of pubic hair at her crotch and you roll your fingertips right over it like the trackball in an old Lenovo laptop. She gratifies your efforts to please her by throwing her head back with a deep, husky moan that thrums against the walls of your apartment. You used to mix tracks, you used to be into sound; you could record her and mix up a number one hit, you fucking know it, if you weren't sure every censor on the face of this fucking earth would cancel you for it.

"Yes, _fuck_ , Dave, oh fuckfuckfuck, _Dave_ ," she keens right back at you, voice high and wavering as the two of you exert your mutual efforts to orgasm. To pleasure. This world is so fucking fucked up, sometimes all you need is at least a little friendly sex. A little skin to fucking skin, a way to remind yourself you're alive, that you exist within the bounds of spatial relationships and in a way that's just your own, to touch, to feel a warm and tender body against your own. Sweaty, filthy, juices mingling, absolutely fucking disgusting and as far from Rose's cerebral machinations as you are when you're standing on Earth to the fucking Sun. To the outermost reaches of the galaxy, somewhere that the Enterprise might roam, fixing problems, exploring space and managing intergalactic diplomacy in a way that in real life your whole species has already failed. No Vulcan handshake for you poor motherfuckers; just god damn alien fish Hitler in fuck-me pumps and a winning smile.

(The enemy is HERE, it's HERE and you're all going to die)

When you cum, you rock upwards into her as she pushes down and it's a brilliant, blissful moment. You can just see her through your slitted gaze, your shades while you make your own stupid O face. You know you look fucking dumb when you cum, it's one of the reasons you usually prefer doggy style. But Jade? Professor English? She looks god damn radiant, expectant and pleasured like a drawing from the Karma Sutra. Electrified. Made into a deity by the pressure of her own pleasure.

You think again, that you could maybe love her. If you just had the time. If she had the time. If things weren't the way they were, with the end of the world chasing you like baying hounds after a particularly sexy and elusive fox.

The two of you fall apart, and lie in sweaty, slick pile on your extravagantly enormous bed. You're just glad (for once) that you decided against the mirror in the ceiling. You'd been almost, but not quite, self absorbed enough to have it put in. You're a Hollywood director, people just roll their eyes when you ask for outlandish shit. You want to make it fucking clear though, that the casting couch stereotype is a fucking _myth_ when it comes to you. Anyone in your movies either fucking earned it or had an inscrutable tap of the shoulder from Rose, you don't fuck people so they can earn a part. You're a Hollywood shitbag but not that kind of shitbag; you'll leave that to Weinstein et al. 

"That was amazing," you mumble upwards as Jade rolls off you to lie beside your near-comatose body on the mattress of your bed, and you sigh for a moment. Then reach down to peel the condom off your dick, tie a knot in it and throw it in the vague direction of where you think your trashcan is. You're probably wrong; you make a note to yourself to add like, a thousand dollar tip to Housekeeping in the morning. You're pretty sure you won't find that disgusting jizzballoon, but Housekeeping sure as fuck will and you appreciate the shit out of them for the shit they put up with you. And as always, the best way to show your appreciation is with piles of soft, green folding cash. It's the only language you have that actually means something.

Holy shit.

"Holy shit," you sigh out, inner thought repeating itself in outer speech, and Jade makes a choked laughing sound next to you, before rolling up to kiss you. One of her hands strokes the side of your face and you show willing by clumsily petting at the length of her lean body, wondering how a woman who looked so dignified could fuck like that.

"Don't tell me you're tired out already, Dave, not when you're the _younger_ one here," she snickers and you kind of consider just throwing in the towel at that point, and admitting defeat, surrender, pleading that you're wrung out by the power of her vajayjay but then she does this thing with her hand. A delicate twist, a touch of strength and then she bites the side of your neck and Dave Junior fucking betrays you by leaping to attention. Fuck. "Well, _someone's_ not tired..."

"He doesn't answer for me, he is a subsidiary and not the chairman of the board," you say automatically, but she leans over you to fumble through your bedside table for another condom and you give in to the inevitable. Not without a certain amount of glee, you have to admit. This has the feeling of one of those One and Onlys, where this is it. That's all she wrote. There's nothing more to come after this, no epilogue, no coda. With you and Jade, there is just this one night.

So you're determined to get everything out of it that you can, and you can feel the same urgency chasing at Jade's heels like the Furies. The Kindly Ones won't let either of you forget that you are mortal, and that you've sinned and punishment is coming. Oh children, it sure as fuck is coming. Rose says it is, and you believe her like you don't believe anything else in this world, not even gravity.

You and Jade fuck until you collapse for good, and you're pretty sure you only just managed to hold out beyond her by like half an inch of stamina. Holy shit, for an old lady, she sure is fucking built. Like the Rock, but if the Rock was one of the Golden Girls or something. Some part of you loves her, adores her. You squash it, and the two of you roll over to sleep underneath the tousled cover of one of your sheets, without showering like the fucking degenerates you are (although Jade definitely got up and pissed at some point) (no UTIs for _her_ ).

When you wake up in the morning, there's nothing left but the purpling bitemarks on your shoulders, your vulnerable neck, and the dank smell in the room to show you'd fucked at all. Obviously the condoms are there somewhere, but you refuse to think about them. That's just fucking sordid, bro. 

Peeling yourself out of the sheets, you shuffle your way to the kitchen to start the Keurig. It's about as fucking much as you can deal with, to get your needed kickstart of caffeine in the morning. Your phone is dead on the counter where you must have dropped it (or Jade picked it up and put it where you could see it), and you're expecting a litany of smug texts from Rose but you're not feeling up to it so you just leave shit where it is. Even Dave fucking Strider can have a morning to himself, can't he? You need to _recover_ from the night of sexual depravity you've just endured (except it wasn't, it was like reconnecting with someone you've known all your life, a friend, something close and tender in a way that would rip out your heart if you thought about it too much). 

And that's it somehow, that's the end of it. It doesn't end with a bang, not even a whimper - just sordidly absent quietness in your penthouse apartment. You kick up some music, something that doesn't disturb your hangover and go to lounge near your laptop so you can claim the hours recovering on your taxes as work time and drink your coffee. At some point, your assistant shows up to make you shower, take your memo about paying Housekeeping a bonus and actually get them up there to clean up all your shit before ushering you out the door to another event. Some sort of handshake shit, like you can keep track. Like you fucking care, as though it matters one fucking iota.

Except you have to care. You have to try. Your movies are a labyrinth of irony and double meaning, wide open for the eyes that can see to see, and you're pretty fucking sure that nobody sees shit. It'd be debilitating, if you hadn't been prepared for the facts of life up front. You're a graduate of the hard knocks school of life, and you can take it. No one fucking gets you, and when you complain to Rose about it, she just sweetly dimples and then eviscerates you with literary allusions.

You'd say you almost forget about Jade English, except in how she slithers under so many waking moments. You haven't thought this much about a one night stand since you nailed Demi Moore (nice lady, nice husband, you appreciate Ashton Kutcher enough to put him in one of your movies, and he knows how to run a devil's threesome, that's for fucking sure). Sometimes you almost turn to say something to the Jade you know should be there, except she isn't. Eventually, even that wears off and you just have the sweet memories of a night where you were almost fucked to exhaustion by a near senior citizen and general GMILF.

It's been a few years when a package turns up and after being investigated for being a fucking bomb, you eventually get to look at it. They retaped the box up, like you didn't know someone had already been all through that shit like a kid investigating the contents of his Halloween pumpkin bucket. It's a fucking shitty skateboard - except it's not. It's _really_ not. 

hi dave! :) you should do some practising on this bad boy, i have a feeling it will come in handy!!! :D love, you know who (doofus) :P

Of course you know who. Like the fucking Skaianet symbol engraved secretly, discreetly, on the inside of the wheels wasn't a big enough tip off. And when you take Jade's advice to practice with the shitty board; well, fuck - you fucking _fly_. At this point, you still don't know why she sent it but you love it. You're airborne, you're fucking Jesus Air like Tony Hawk could only hope to be. It's an escape, it's something you needed and you didn't know you needed it.

When you try to ask Rose how you can send a message back to Jade, a thank you, like you're some kind of person who knows what politeness and civility is, she just shrugs. And smiles like you should understand why she won't tell you, without her actually explaining. You love her, but she's such a fucking inscrutable bitch sometimes. Really takes that Delphic Oracle role too fucking deep. So you just do what you can do to thank Jade by using the board, practising with it and enjoying each soaring moment.

The purpose of it becomes clear, eventually. Like everything else.

All you can hope is that you and Rose have fortified your dominoes enough that they fall the right way. That the kids you know are coming (the kids that are already here) _win_. When you die cold and quiet by a golden trident, your skateboard skidding into nothing, you think about Rose and Jade - and you hope everything you've done, every precaution, every movie moment - is enough. You'd always known you wouldn't see it. 

You hope like fuck Dirk (your kid brother, _yours_ , you've spent so much time and money getting ready for him) and his friends beat this fucking game. You wish you could see just how they'll win, but you've done your part and passed your baton. And so have Jade and Rose (and one other, one you never got to meet - John, Rose had told you - John Crocker, famous comedian - you wish you'd met him too). It's the purpose of every generation, right? To hand on what has been to those coming after, so they can mould the future. Rose says it turns out ok. You hope she's right (but she has been every other time, so dying doesn't seem so bad with that thought to comfort you).

Maybe you don't go out with a bang, but you go out feeling like you've done _enough_. Maybe. Hopefully. And that's as much as any man could possibly fucking hope for.


End file.
